‘Tis the season for acquisitions. This fall, News Corp announced their intentions to purchase Move, Inc. for $950 million, keeping the company operating as an independent entity, keeping staff and headquarters in San Jose. The deal has been finalized and closed after a short period under review as required by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which required no additional investigation, making for a short closing period.
Months prior, Zillow had announced their plans to acquire Trulia for $3.5B in stock, and the deal didn’t get as many rapid green lights as the News Corp. deal, and the companies have said all along they don’t plan to close until next year – that date is now projected to be February 15, 2015 so the FTC can ask more questions of the merging brands.
While a Zillow/Trulia combination was originally thought to be anti-competitive with Move, Inc.’s realtor.com the only remaining big boy in the land, the massive cash injection and resources News Corp. has brought to Move’s table is what many think will fuel the FTC’s timely approval of the Zillow/Trulia deal.
Details of the deal
According to a statement by News Corp, “Through realtor.com® and its mobile applications, Move displays more than 98% of all for-sale properties listed in the US. The Move network of websites reaches more than 30 million people per month, who spend an average of 22 minutes each on its sites.”
“In partnership with the National Association of Realtors® and its one million members, we look forward to turbo-charging realtor.com® and making it the most popular and profitable property site in America,” said Robert Thomson, Chief Executive of News Corp. Mr. Thomson said that the acquisition of Move extends News Corp’s operations globally and digitally, and substantially bolsters the real estate pillar of its business.
The original offer was for News Corp to purchase all outstanding shares of Move common stock at $21.00 per share, which closed at midnight last night, representing 34,299,586 shares, which is 83.1 percent of Move’s outstanding shares.
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